Young Silver's Story
by artificus
Summary: Young John Silver, crew member of the 'Walrus', Captain Bones' pirate ship, meets his first love in the Spaceport of Salisbury. ***Update: Beta-comments deleted finally *feels ashamed* ***


Many many years before John Silver became a suspicious Cyborg, he was a naive dreamer, who was draged into the Etherium's unexplored vastness. Away from a subverted parents' house, away from the father, who often got violent when he was drunken, away from the mother, who had abandoned it long ago to defend, away from a future that hold nothing for him.  
There outside, in these endless widths he dreamed of a better life. He dreamed of a life of wealth and luxury, of everything his old life was not able to offer.

John, a young Ursid of just 20 years, got yet disappointed by reality soon.  
The work on the ships and in the ports was hard, the wages were poor and the hunger was a constant companion. John traveled as a sailor from town to town, worked in many ports, and yet he never had enough money to be able to afford the minimum and so he was also tired of this life someday.

Driven and blinded from his dreams, he joined Captain Bones' pirate rout. They often captured a lot of gold in their raids on the imperial merchant fleet, but the great coup was missing. The captain always took the fattest piece of the loot and the crew split up the rest. But most of the money was mostly squandered in the next brothel or gambling house.

But John liked this relaxed way of life ...

One day John and his mate Tom Morgan sat in a stuffy tavern. The air was heavy from the wads of the pipe smoke. It had been a sticky day, outside the last parts of a thunderstorm let down the masses of rain and turned the streets into muddy wetlands. When the weather improved, they were going to be on the prowl again.  
There was always the risk to be killed on one of these raids and "a dead man needs no money," as Bones always said. So they blew their last Pennys on booze...

"Eh, innkeeper, a bottle rum for my friend and me, but quickly" Morgan babbled in the direction of the bar and bared his bad teeth.

"But this is the last one" John added staggering, threw the money on the table and then moved the lining of his trouser pocket to the outside.

"Broke" he added.

"Wait" Morgan conciliated calmly. He fell silent as the innkeeper brought them the rum. He took the money from the table silently and disappeared again without saying a word.

"Maybe tomorrow you are a made man already!" Morgans eyes began to shine and Johns heart beat faster at the thought that the next day they may have captured so much, that each of them no longer needed working until the end of their life's.

"Just imagine! Gold, jewellery, golden cups!" Morgan whispered and lifted his rum filled mug.

Riches and gold were their only topics when they were drunk. They were able to talk hours long about what they would do with their share and imagined what they could all afford.

John was just replying something when his thoughts were interrupted by a raspy voice behind them.

"Golden cups! Pah! Especially you both would fool away even the greatest wealth within two months!" said the raspy voice. Morgan was scared up and spilled some of his rum, but John stayed calm and tried to remember what he had just wanted to say ... something with a golden carriage ...

Captain Billy Bones, a tortoise-like reptile stepped out of the haze, and consorted with his crew-mates.

"Even Flints treasure wouldn't be enough for you!" said Bones with his neck stretched as far that he could directly see in the faces of both of them from the opposite side of the table.

"Such a nonsense! That won't happen to us!" said John and tried to return the Captains look, but he saw dubble and didn't know exactly to which Bones he should turn to...  
When Bones heard him, he moved his head into his shell again and giggled silently.

"I bet you two have no single penny left in your pocket!" he laughed.  
When the two stared silently into their jugs, he became serious.

"Oh, you're such meat heads! And something like that is my crew!"

He gave the innkeeper at the bar a sign and quick he brought a large bottle of rum. Bones reached into his waistcoat pocket and threw a gold doubloon clinking on the table. Then he called the inkeeper that John and Morgan each have a bottle.

"Riff-raff like you make me sick!" he said and took a large sip of rum.

"Good sailors, brave comrades, completely bent on gold! And then?" his head soared.

"They've begged and then miserable went to the dogs in the gutter..."

He moved his head back slowly without looking at them. He looked into the void, as if dark memories passed his mind's eye, then he shook his head and took another big gulp.

"You little idiots live only in the moment ... you don't think in tomorrow ..."

His voice was quiet, and for a moment John was not sure whether he spoke with them. He looked over to Morgan, who returned his look, raised an eyebrow and shrugged. Apparently this talk didn't interested him just as everything else, apart from gold - and the rum, which was just brought from the innkeeper.

Bones seemed awakened from his trance. And the three bawled and drank a toast that it should give better weather the next day while someone on stage announced the next show.

Then he saw her. She appeared on stage before the music started and seemed a little lost in the first moment. The horde of men freaked out immediately. Even Morgan and Bones joined the drunks' hoot.  
But John remained silent. As the only one in this Pup. The young woman, or rather the girl awakened some kind of guardian instincts in him. When the men began to bawl, she receded a few steps back. Probably she didn't have a lot of experience in this business yet.

The music started. But the babe was totally intimidated and looked helplessly to the left edge of the stage, from where she was invited angrily to move finally.  
The crowd got impatient and some idiot even threw a mug at the stage, only a small piece next to the babe, where it bursts.  
John was drunk and had no inhibitions to flounce on the stage and put the babe down there to get away from this wretched gang of boozy cutthroats. Determined - but strongly shambling - he stood up.

At this moment, the babe went also a few big determinded steps forward, so that she stood directly at the edge of the stage and examined the audience playfully smiling. Then she clicked her fingers sassyly in the direction of the piano player. Again, the music started and she began to sing her heart out. She had an amazing voice, which reminded in distant and exotic worlds and sounded wonderful familar at the same time. A short moment nothing was to hear except of her voice and the accompanying piano.

Then rejoicing and hoot filled the musty pup again when she also began to dance. John sat down slowly, without looking away from her. The babe was unusually pretty. She had long red-orange hair and brown skin with some white flecks around eyes and nose. Her figure was graceful and she moved with the for the people of Frayas typical smoothness. She looked cheeky into the audience and when she sang her emerald green eyes shined like the ever-thriving fields of Cyrus. She wore a shimmering short skirt and a top with bare midriff of the same shimmering material. In addition she wore white patent leather shoes with high heels and fitting white gloves. All of this composed a sharp contrast to her dark skin.

John was sanked down on his stool, had his arms folded on the table, placed his head on them and enjoyed the presentation dreamily.  
He neither relized that Morgan and Bones made fun of him, nor that a few meters behind him a fierce fight had alcohol did its effect.

His view was quite blurry and rather restricted because of the alcohol, so that he could only see her clearly.  
When she would have a name only half as beautiful as she looked like, could one vocalise this name in an ordinary language? Or would it sound like birds, and the rippling of water? Or how the noise of the wind in the sails? Or as her singing, which sounded so incredibly anxious.

He observed how first a few and then more and more people threw money on stage. John reached into his pockets instinctively, but they were empty. At that moment he wished that he had a penny left at least... at least one, which he then could throw on the stage aswell.  
But he had nothing.  
And he was nothing. He was a nobody.

He looked longing to stage. The music ended and applause stormed off. The men demanded an encore. The young beauty with the unspeakable name was completely out of breath and had little beads of perspiration on her forehead. She fell to her knees and collected the money in her short skirts, while the guys continued to bawl for an encore.

Johns thoughts wandered...  
One day, when he had money and would be someone, then he would offer everything to a woman like her. Then she wouldn't be forced to dance infront of strange men and to pick up dirty money from the floor of a sticky stage. He hardly couldn't bear to see that. Preferably he would have pulled her down from the stage to tell her that there's no need to do this. She didn't have to abase herself in this way. He sighed. Unfortunately, he knew only too well what one had to do to earn his bread.

When She had lifted all, she made a last curtsy and left the stage accompanied by angry shouting and insults, because the required encore left out. However, it was soon quiet, as the men applied themselfs to their rum again.

It was summer in Salisbury, one of the largest platforms for solar crystals in the empire of the imperial majesty, so it dawned very late. It had stopped raining and the sky cleared, but the sultriness and the heat of the day had given place to a damp cold, untypical for this region and this season.

Johns drowsiness had disappeared in the moment when he had left the pup with Bones and Morgan and had stepped out on the muddy road. The coolness cleared his mind and led him to an idea. While the other two returned to the ship, the "Walrus," John remained in the city and positioned himself at the rear exit of the pup. He waited there for a while until he began to freeze and to sober up and he asked himself what he should do, if she came out.

What should he say? What should he tell her? What had he actually lost here?  
John did not have much experience with something like that, actually he had never been really in love. For the girls in the brothel one just had to put the money on the table.

John shook his head. This whole thing was rediculous that it put him to shame and he was going to turn around and to return to the Walrus.

Suddenly the door opened squeaky. John didn't recognized her immediately because he couldn't see her face. She wore a high-necked claret-red costume and a hat with a wide brim in the same color. Her flamboyant hair was neatly put together among it. He realized it first when he saw her white gloves, which she already had during the show. She went smoothly and elegantly down the stairs, but when she came onto the street, she suddenly stood in ankle-deep mud, whereupon she gave a terrible curse.

Johns jaw droped. He had never heard a woman cursing like that and for a moment he doubted that this should be the same angelic being, he had just seen over an hour in Pup.

"Damn rum" he thought bitterly.

A coach drove over.

"He, coachman! Stop!" cried the young woman and stamped through the mud to the coach. John hesitated. He would like to prevent her from entering the carriage, but he had no idea, how to do so. When she opened the door to enter, however, a finely dressed gent pushed her roughly aside.

"Hey, that's my coach, goddammit!" the babe called furious and was about to pull the guy out of the coach. John had to smile.  
But suddenly the guy hit her rude from the coach away, so that she landed in the mud again.

"Back off, you good-for-nothing bitch!" he snobed her and gave the coachman the command to drive. The coach rolled down the muddy road towards the city.

"That's not true!" the babe struggled to her feet and looked angry after coach. Her whole dress was all over blurred with mud and completely soaked. John wanted to help her up, but everything happened so quickly that he could hardly respond.

Then she bent after a stone, straightened up, striked far out and threw the stone with full force in the direction of the coach.

"Stupid -"

Suddenly glas rattled in the distance, a cry of pain sounded and the coach held.

"... idiot ...?"

Her voice was only a cheep. She probably hadn't expected to really hit the coach. John ran a few steps forward to better see. He stood a few metres behind her and saw how she cringed as the magistrate of Salisbury got off of the coach angry and strided back to them.

"You stupid floozy! I will teach you some manners!" he roared angry and put his walking stick like a cudgel. In the semidarkness John couldn't say whether his eyes fooled him, but it seemed to him that a hole was in the rear window of the coach and that a dark stripe of blood flowed down the magistrate's right temple and down his cheek.

She turned on her heels and did a runner. In doing so she bumped violently into John and fell back in the mud.

"Look out!"

"Whatch out you stupid - " she went silent when their eyes met. John stood over her and held his breath. Her green eyes seemed to glow in the dark. He should have help her up, but he couldn't stir. So they only saw each other into the eyes, she sitting in the mud, he standing confused infront of her, not quite master of himself. For both this moment seemed much longer than it lasted for real.

"Stop!"

The roar of the angry magistrate awoke them from their trance. John took her hand, surprised by his own initiative, pulled her out of the mud and ran with her somewhere into the darkness.  
"You will pay for that, you scrubber!"

In a dark alley she finally broke away.

"Man, knock it off, dammit! what's wrong with you? Where are you taking me?" she cried annoyed.

John was confused. Why was she so angry? He had just wanted to help her. Then he looked around and had to find that he didn't had the faintest glimmer, where they were.

"Erm .."

"You are already the third one who ambushed me this week at the rear exit, but no one managed to protract me until now! That's so pathetic!"

"Pipe down, I didn't ambush you and I certainly didn't protract you!"

He was insulted, because she challenged his intentions offhand. At last he had really only wanted to help.

"True, to invade something like that you need to have brains..." she determinded matter-of-factly. He had only a moment to think about her words before he realized that she had insulted him.

"Don't get cheeky, Missy! To lapidate the magistrate with stones doesn't testify great intelligence aswell!"

Suddenly she laughed and it sounded like the rippling of a fresh mountain spring.

"Well, that's true ..." she admitted.

"Also, in my situation I shouldn't talk that big. After all you are much stronger than me ... you might do anything to me ... so I should be careful, don't you think?"

The question addressed to him confused him even more. He didn't know what to respond to that.

"Are you hungry?"

This question was as unexpected as everything else which had happened this evening so far.

"erm .. well ... so ..." suddenly it came to his mind, that he was broke.

"I invite you!" she said at the same moment. Actually it contradicted his honour and his male pride to let her invite him to a meal ... but he was broke and after so much rum pretty hungry. Her charming smile finally convinced him completely.

"Well then" he said casually, as if he didn't care a fig for it. Thereupon she nodded slowly and gave him a well-knowing gaze, as if she exactly knew what he really thought.

"Well then, come"

"Don't fool me, you DID ambush me ..." she said after a break and twitched the gloves rightly.

"I didn't!" he replied peevishly.

"And why have you banged around there then? Picked some flowers? But I've seen you in the pup"

"I do not know, damn, I was accidentally there. It's not said that you are that pretty" John tried to act bold in order not to show how nervous he was ... in vain.  
She didn't took him seriously. Her only response was a charming look. Apparently she was aware of her beauty and her effect on men.

"But of course" she said finally, with a clearly sarcastic tone.

Suddenly John relized that he didn't know her unspeakable name, but she beat him to it.

"What is your name? You have a name, don't you?"

"Of course I have a name!" Slowly he began to think, she was making a fool of him.

"So?"

"John Silver"

"Silver!" she said very impressed. John was confused.

"I am Elly Gold! Gold and Silver! What a coincidence! It is a very special honour and pleasure, Sir!" she cried played theatrically. She grinned wide and stretched out her hand.

"What?" he laughed when he took her hand.

"Just fun, my name is Elly, Elly Glove," she said with a smile and waved with the fingers of her other hand. The gloves were apparently her trademark.  
This woman didn't seem to take herself very serious as well as others.

"Elly" repeated John. That sounded less exotic than he had imagined, but it fited her. But as if she would have guessed his thoughts, she added promt:

"Actually, Eleonora, but, you know, 'brevity is the soul of wit'"

Eleonora ... that the name sounded like a distant, bright shining star ...

* * *

The next morning, John woke up very early. The sun has just risen, shined through the tiny barred window in Ellys bedroom, and the rays warmed his face.  
Cuddled up to him lied Elly and slept deeply and firmly. A long while, John just looked at her. The sun's rays gave her silky hair and her velvety skin a golden shimmer. This sight filled John with an inner warmth and a bliss that he never felt in his life nearly fell asleep again beside her when a sudden unpleasant unease overcame him. He tried to fend off the thoughts and continue to sleep, but he failed.  
He frowned thoughtfully, the arms around her and considered.

The weather couldn't be any better so the Walrus would launch today for sure. He would have to hurry if he didn't want to miss the ship.  
But for the first time in his life something held him back.  
He didn't want to go. Preferably he would have fallen asleep again beside her and to have some breakfast together with her later on. This idea filled him with pleasant anticipation and he sighed.  
The evening before they got along incredibly well and they had found out, that they had much in common. Both had been through a tough childhood and now both were chasing for a dream - each in his own way. John wanted to be rich and Elly wanted to be famous - and rich too.  
John had told her how he"earned" his money and that he would probably launch the next morning. She had raised an eyebrow, gave a smile and replied that in this case it would be probably better not to carry on together... Well ...

Suddenly he was cold.  
How did he figured this?

If he stayed here and hold down an honest job, they would never have more than enough. But he wanted to be able to offer everything to this woman.  
John thought about this. He could stay, work and - as he knew himself - be afflicted of this life in no later than two months. But if he left now, he would return soon - perhaps after the next raid - as a wealthy man.

He closed her a little more in his arms and put his face on her neck.  
He didn't want to go. More than anything else that he ever wanted in the world, he wanted to stay with her, to protect and love her.  
But like in earlier times he had to accept that such a future had nothing ready.

So he arose with a heavy heart and dressed.  
Then he saw her again, what didn't make the farewell any easier. Eleonora slept quiet and peacefully. The cool sun's rays glowed on their skin and lend her the appearance of an angel.  
John turned and wanted to disappear, but halfway to the door he changed his mind. He didn't want to go without saying goodbye.  
He went back to the bed, bent carefully over Elly and gave her a gentle kiss on her cheek.  
Elly woke up and smiled when she saw that he had already dressed.

"I'll go now"  
John was shocked about how difficult these words crossed his lips. Elly only nodded.

"So, good bye, John Silver ..." she whispered quietly.  
John couldn't say exactly what it was, the way she said it or her sad yet compassionate looking eyes, but something in these words broke his heart. It sounded like she doubted that they would ever meet again.

But he would return! As a rich man! Wealthy! He wouldn't drudge any longer and she didn't had to dance any longer!

He wanted to tell her everything, but instead the words were stuck in his throat.  
He let his head drop and went to the door.  
At that moment he wanted nothing more than that she would ask him to stay. He would've done it.  
But she didn't.

A few hours later, John Silver launched with the Walrus. He earned a lot of backslapping and accretive looks, because he had spent the night with the beautiful dancer.  
Nevertheless, he felt so miserable as never before.

But he would come back!

One day ...

... He would have gold. He would be someone. He would return and would be able to give her a decent life.

And so John Silver made a vow.

But everything turned out diffrently...


End file.
